Mr. Michael Tutty:

I will let Mr. Coffey speak about GNI* because he is the nerd in that area rather than me.

Let me address the debt level, at EU level the requirement is still to get to 60% of GDP but GDP is becoming increasingly distorted from our point of view and that is why the previous Minister for Finance decided we should be aiming at 45% rather than 60%, taking account of the 26% increase in our GDP in 2015. From a practical point of view that was really adjusting for that 26% increase. The 45% was really pretty well equivalent to the previous 60%. It was not that he was trying to do something even more than had been set out before. We would certainly agree with that approach because our debt is still rather high. As Deputy Noonan pointed out in one of his last speeches, on a per capitabasis, Ireland's debt is the fourth highest in the world, behind Japan, the USA and Singapore. Looking at it on a per capita basis, we are above every other European country. In terms of GDP, we are a little below some of the others but in per capitaterms we are still very high and we are still borrowing money. We need to get the debt level down in order to protect ourselves from shocks in the future and to give more room for manoeuvrer whenever there is a downturn once again. On that basis, we certainly support the aim of getting down to 45% or even below it in terms of GDP to debt ratio and getting it down in terms of our share of revenue or GNI to the appropriate level.

We certainly agree there is a need for infrastructural expenditure. The only issue is whether we have to borrow more or to change priorities in terms of what we are doing with the existing resources. We know that during the bad times capital expenditure was cut far more than other areas, but it is not clear that going off to borrow more money for capital expenditure is the way rather than to use the fiscal space for capital expenditure as opposed to current expenditure or tax reductions.

I will hand over to Mr. Coffey to speak on GNI*.